Journal Abstracts

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Contemporary research indicates that the mother's emotional state and that of her unborn child are far more closely related before birth than was thought to be the case only a few years ago. The purpose of this study was to explore possible correlations existing between the primary emotional states of birthmothers during their pregnancies and the subsequent awareness of these emotional states of birthmothers by their offspring. To achieve this goal, 12 pairs of mothers (ages 44 to 85) and their offspring (ages 9 to 61) were hypnotically age regressed to the time of the pregnancy.

The intention of this study was to examine the short-term psychological effects on parents, if any, of ultrasound scanning-that is, of fetal visualization. The starting hypothesis was that after visualizing the fetus, parents experience a lower level of stress and anxiety. To test that hypothesis, a quasiexperimental/control type of study was conducted. The subjects, all parents (N = 296), were divided into two groups: an experimental high-feedback group that watched the ultrasound screen, and a low-feedback control group that could not see a screen.

Using questionnaire and interview techniques, 167 children aged 11 to 18, and 213 adults were asked for information on their experiences of physical abuse, physical neglect, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, and sexual abuse. When neglect preceded abuse in children who experienced both, the negative impact on the child's outlook was magnified. Neglect increases a child's susceptibility and vulnerability to abuse. Our data indicates neglect has a greater impact than abuse on a child's selfperception and future outlook.

This prospective study focused on the relationships between social support, family, and income pressures on anxiety and stress during pregnancy. Four hundred and thirty-three women elected to participate in a study that included completing a medical/psychosocial questionnaire, the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Jenkins Activity Survey, and stress measures formulated using the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Each participant was assessed once during each trimester of pregnancy.

The aim of medical education is to produce doctors who promote healing in all people. This aim can only be reached by cooperation between medicine and psychology. One role of psychology is to educate physicians as to recent developments in pre- and perinatal psychology. A truly ecumenical medicine will consider all of the factors in the environment of the patient, rather than take a narrow view of physical healing.

Observations in the field of psychotherapy give us every reason to believe that experiences before and during birth remain present in our awareness of our own bodies and in our inner states of experience as a constant background of experience. During external and internal crises and conflict situations, this background experience can be activated in the form of fantasies and emotional states and can then influence images and ideas about ourselves and the world.

For decades, millions of mothers have been subjected to new obstetric procedures, but with little knowledge of the long term effects from such interventions. Such procedures might, however, be of importance for the infant's behavior as an adult. Jacobson and Bygdeman found that a traumatic birth was associated with an increased risk of the infant subsequently committing suicide by violent means, whereas giving opiates to the mother during labor seemed to reduce the risk.

Water has always been a powerful symbol for human beings. Water is critical to life. First, the human fetus grows in the amniotic fluid. Second, the scientific context of the 1990s suggests a new vision of Homo sapiens as a primate that, although genetically related to the chimpanzees, has adapted to a particular environment through a land-sea interface. In this paper the origins of the power of water symbolism is explored, particularly in the context of the birth process.

In this paper, I examine narcissistic difficulties experienced by the handicapped youngster, especially to the extent that they are anchored in pre-, peri- and early post-natal experiences that were cast in the molds of parental narcissistic vulnerability and of impediments to the infantile attainment of a core sense of self. Considerations pertain to relatively generalizable consequences of infant handicap, encompassing the potential effects upon narcissism of a broad range of developmental disabilities.